Thursday, February 12, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABE!

My sister just sent me this in an email. Her son received it from his on-line school principal...

On this day exactly two hundred years ago, two men were born whose lives would change the world – one for the better, one for the worse.

One man was ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Born to a humble frontier family, his only education was the Bible and a few books influenced by the Bible. Growing up with a Biblical frame of reference, he was repulsed by the idea of slavery, and later on ran for President representing a new political party that had opposition to the spread of slavery as a main plank. Thanks to his leadership, based on a deep sense of dependence on God, America survived its Civil War and abolished human slavery. We have had a long path to racial equality in this country, but we have to acknowledge Abraham Lincoln's significant role in making it happen.

The other man was CHARLES DARWIN. He grew up in a privileged home, the son of a clergyman, and received the best education available. He used his education to devise an explanation for variant life forms that did not recognize any Creator. Eventually he wrote that some human races were naturally inferior to others, and would become extinct through natural selection. His ideas were seized upon by people like Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, who advocated sterilization of black women, and by Adolf Hitler, who used them to justify the extermination of Jews and Gypsies. They also lent support to American white supremacists who wanted to maintain suppression of black people. Today they form the philosophical core of a self-appointed intellectual elite in education who seek to suppress any reference to the possibility of a Creator. Two men of great influence, born the same day, but what different results their lives brought about! It illustrates the power of ideas, as ideas sincerely believed can have either dreadful or blessed consequences. This is why parents and Christian school teachers are willing to make sacrifices so you can have a Christian education. This is why you need the capability of evaluating all ideas in the light of God's Word.